| Had I known You
Were a Jew © 2008 by Bob Miller It was a dark and stormy
night in Las Vegas. When I walked out of the casino, my partner said as he got into his
car, "Do your best not to kill anyone tonight, Miller." I didn't bother to
answer him because that would have been a commitment. Our vocation required that we carry
a concealed weapon, and I almost never went anywhere without it.
Somewhere near the
intersection of Sahara and Las Vegas Blvd., I saw two men trying to beat up some old guy.
I say trying because the old man was holding his own. I decided to just watch since he was
raising some knots on the heads of these two guys. However, the odds and youth began to
take their toll, so I made my presence known thinking the two thugs would not like the
odds and leave. That was not to be the case. One of them pulled out a weapon and headed
towards me. Big mistake on his part. My weapon was larger and far more deadly than his.
To make a long story
short, the two would-be robbers left the area in need of serious medical attention. As I
was taking the old man to the hospital to get some stitches, I said, "You're quite a
fighter, old man."
He replied, "When
you're a Jew, you'd better know how to fight or they'll kill you."
This really took me back.
I was born and raised in the backwoods of Alabama and there were no Jews in that area, at
least none that I knew of. Everything I had been told about the Jewish people wasn't good.
So I said to the old man, "Hell, had I known you were a Jew, I wouldn't have stopped
to help."
With big crocodile tears
running down his cheek, he asked, "Why?" I didn't know why and told him so. We
were close friends until his death.
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